


Mission: Berlin

by shieldivarius



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/F, Gassing, Mission Gone Wrong, Pre-Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Pre-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 15:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/shieldivarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A FUBAR'd mission made for a <i>great</i> first anniversary gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_[[Day One]]_

If she hadn’t known how many analysts were involved in every decision S.H.I.E.L.D. made, Natasha could almost believe this mission had been tossed together, pell-mell, at the last moment, with herself and Melinda as the only available, qualified agents.

Unfortunately, she did know. She knew that despite their not having received the packet on the mission until 24 hours before they arrived on the ground, they were headed into territory that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been monitoring for months. And she knew that even if she and Melinda rarely worked together, there was a damn good reason they’d both been picked for this.

What she _didn’t_ know was that reason. And that oversight, certainly intentional on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s part, was unnerving. She and Melinda were rarely put on a team together because one of them was usually more than enough. On the surface, this was a simple observation and retrieval mission.

Assigning both of them to it meant that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t think so, but they hadn’t received more information on that than _‘we’ll update you as the situation develops, you’re on the ground at 1000 tomorrow.’_

It was just after noon now and the Berlin streets outside of the safe house window were busy and familiar. Comfortable, soothing. A safe house in a busy city centre made it easier to come and go, the density of the families in the apartments and buildings around them harder to pinpoint their exact location.

A creak in the floorboards behind her and Natasha half-turned from the window in time for Melinda to wrap her hands around her arms. Dark hair slid forward across her shoulder as Melinda pressed her lips to it. “Talk to me,” she murmured. Natasha turned full attention back to the plaza below—none of the buildings the window faced were higher than it for a couple of blocks. The perfect safe house.

“We weren’t both sent on this mission merely because our anniversary is this week,” she said.

Melinda laughed, a huff of air tickling the hairs on the back of Natasha’s neck. “The time to bring up your reservations was at the mission briefing.”

Natasha shook her head. “No reservations. Just a hard time believing it’s so cut and dry.”

Melinda stroked her thumbs in small arcs on Natasha’s biceps. “Inexperienced handler.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, either.”

“He picked the team,” Melinda said. She tugged Natasha back until she was leaning against her, and Natasha let her head fall against Melinda’s shoulder.

“You’re not worried at all?” Natasha asked after a moment. Melinda was a warm, sure presence at her back, and her ease and relaxed posture only highlighted how tense Natasha felt against her.

“I never doubt you.”

Natasha rolled her head to one side to peer into Melinda’s face. From this angle, and proximity, she couldn’t make out much more than the slight upturning of the corner of her lip, but that in itself brought her a little peace.

“I’m not doubting you,” she clarified. “I know you’ve got my back.”

“But I’m not Barton.”

Natasha shifted her shoulders in a bit of a shrug. “Hazard of working on the same strike team 95% of the time.”

“I understand.”

Melinda dropped her hands down and wrapped her arms around Natasha’s waist. Natasha covered them with her own, hugging Melinda to her.

“You know, we have a bit of time before first check-in,” Natasha murmured. She pressed herself back against Melinda, who in turn tightened her arms and made a vaguely unimpressed noise.

“Time we should be using to review the files and go over tonight’s covers.”

Natasha hummed and turned around to bring them face-to-face, noses almost touching, and glided her hands across Melinda’s waist to rest in the curve of her lower back and pull her closer. “Are you done being the nagging senior agent?”

Melinda glared at her. They were nearly the same height, but Natasha was just enough shorter that she could slit her eyes and peer up at Melinda through her eyelashes.

“I thought you had reservations we needed to work through,” Melinda murmured.

Their lips nearly touching, Natasha said, “There are better ways of doing that than going over the files again.” 

“I hope this isn’t what you and Barton do in mission downtime.”

Surprised, Natasha let out a sharp laugh. Melinda kissed it off her lips, firm and sure and warm. “And I hope that was a ‘no.’”

Natasha pulled her close, and pressed herself up against her, assuring Melinda with firm kisses pressed to her lips that this was special treatment reserved for her.

“Away from the window,” Melinda murmured, stepping back and pulling Natasha with her.

If they weren’t both so coordinated, it wouldn’t have been possible for them to make it across the room, still tangled so closely together and still exchanging kisses, without tripping over each other.

They stopped with no more space between them and the narrow bed (a twin, the only real sleeping space in the apartment because S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t exactly generous with furnishings). Melinda sat and drew Natasha down beside her, perched on the edge of the bed, opposite knees touching. Natasha’s hand lightly cupped Melinda’s cheek, dark hair tickling the backs of her fingers. Melinda’s hands were firm on her waist and left wrist as their kisses became open-mouthed and more needy.

Natasha trailed her hand down Melinda’s neck, fingers tracing a couple of barely-there scars, and pressed kisses along her jaw line in its wake. She dropped one onto her collarbone before guiding her down onto her back with a hand on her shoulder. Melinda went without resistance, an amused tilt to her smile as she watched Natasha.

“Shift up,” Natasha murmured. Melinda obliged, sliding up the bed until her head was on the pillow. Natasha crawled up the bed after her, dropping a kiss on one of Melinda’s knees as she went.

“What’s this about?” Melinda asked. Natasha leaned over her, long red curls forming a curtain around their faces. She kissed Melinda again, pressing her down into the bed, one of her hands ghosting down over Melinda’s shirt, lingering for a moment longer over one breast.

Melinda touched her wrist, stalling her. “Natasha?”

“We’re going to miss our anniversary. We’ll be neck deep,” she punctuated her words with kisses to the pulse points in Melinda’s neck, “in shit. Celebrate now.”

Melinda gave a happy sigh beneath her, dropped her hand back down to the bed. “Everything’s going to go fine,” she murmured.

“You have doubts, too,” Natasha said. She cupped Melinda’s breast, trailed her hand over the pebbling nipple that the thin shirt and sports bra did nothing to disguise.

“I know we can handle it.” Melinda hand trailed through Natasha’s hair, fingers wrapping the red strands between them. “And work talk isn’t seductive.”

Natasha laughed and ducked her head to mouth at the fabric covering the same hard nipple. “I suppose it isn’t.”

 

That evening, Melinda helped her pin curl her hair to get it under the short, blonde wig she’d be wearing for this stage of the job.

“Black Widow, checking in. 1500 and go,” she said, finger on her earpiece. Melinda stepped out of the bathroom, her skirt, apron and shirt identical to Natasha’s own. Tonight they’d case the banquet hall as servers. Two nights from now, Melinda would reprise that role and Natasha would be at the gala as a guest. 

_“Good to go, Widow. Next check in at 2400.”_ Buzzed the voice in her ear. Midnight, about half an hour after they were supposed to arrive back at the safe house. Melinda nodded, the voice of their handler in her ear as well. _“Remember, you’re establishing tonight.”_

“We know,” Melinda said, her tone carefully neutral but the set of her eyebrows and lips saying something entirely different. Natasha smiled a little. New handler. _Baby_ handler. McLaughlin, in the briefing, had expressed how concerned he was that they come home safely at the end of the mission. It had almost been sweet, even if she and Melinda had been exchanging sarcastic glances and making the man progressively more nervous throughout the meeting.

Coulson, overseeing McLaughlin, had been sitting behind him and had glared at them for it the entire time. Natasha figured it better if she and Melinda broke him in than an operative like Clint, though.

_“Radio silence until check in.”_

He would still be receiving their signals, but he wouldn’t be communicating anything to them. Not until the actual night of the gala. That worked for the both of them, and McLaughlin would be able to learn how experienced operatives worked in the field, to get a good feel for how future missions where he had to be more involved would go down.

Melinda’s hands fell on Natasha’s shoulders from behind. Natasha turned slightly and their lips met, the kiss reassuring but silent so as not to be picked up by the sensitive microphones in their earpieces.

They left the apartment together, leaving Natasha Romanoff and Melinda May behind.

 

They spent the evening with minimal interaction, both working the same wedding reception, but with Melinda taking the role of the experienced, life-long server who moved across the banquet circuit, and Natasha the newcomer with the heavy Russian accent who was a bit of a klutz and asked for a lot of native-language guidance from the Russian-speaking _sous_ chef. Their story was that Melinda had gotten Natasha the job as a favour to her aunt. 

“You’re embarrassing me,” Melinda said, grabbing Natasha by the arm and pulling her aside during the lull of the guests eating dessert. A couple of the other servers, on their way outside for a smoke break, sent a glance their way. Natasha stared at the bar tray she had clenched in both hands in front of her.

“I’m working hard,” Natasha said. “I _try._ ”

“Not good enough.”

“It’s easier for you to make friends,” Natasha argued.

“I’m certainly doing better than you at it, anyway, but that’s not what we’re here for,” Melinda said. Good. She had an in. They wanted her back, but Natasha wasn’t going to be invited back to work any other nights, and that was perfect for their cover. “Try harder,” Melinda said.

Natasha bit down on her lip and nodded. Melinda released her with a bit of a push, and Natasha stumbled, catching her balance and trudging to the bar and unloading her tray of cups onto the conveyor belt for the sanitizer. The dishwasher gave her a bit of a smile, like he knew what had happened.

“Chin up, you’ll do better,” he said.

She shrugged and gave a half-hearted smile in return.

 

“You aren’t worried you made yourself too known?” Melinda asked when they were back in the apartment that night. Natasha stood in front of the mirror, carefully removing each pin curl, the released hair tumbling down in a bounce of neat, perfect spirals.

“No,” Natasha said, keeping her tone light in case Melinda’s intent wasn’t to sound as though she were criticizing the way Natasha operated in the field. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail before exiting the bathroom, finding Melinda where she’d left her, pouring over plans for two nights from now.

“You were awfully chatty,” Melinda said without looking up.

Eyebrows high on her forehead, Natasha sat down on the couch next to her. “Not with anyone consequential.”

Melinda turned to look at her, giving the folder in her hands a little shake. “You don’t know that.”

Natasha picked the file concerning her cover up from the table and started reviewing it carefully. New money, daughter of a Silicon Valley tycoon that no one thought was going to maintain influence for more than five years or so, but that everyone would be careful to respect now, just in case.

“Natasha,” Melinda said, a bit of a snap to her voice. “I am your partner on this. I need to know what you’re going to do so that I know if it has gone wrong.”

“Nothing went wrong this evening. Your cover is established.”

Doubt crept up Natasha’s spine, slid across her body under her skin and into her stomach at the look Melinda fixed her with. Everything had gone well this evening, so well she’d let herself forget, if only for a moment, that they expected it all to turn sideways before the end.

“If you’re recognized, we’re both screwed.”

“It’s too late to change the plan. I do doppelganger roles all the time.”

Melinda nodded, the stiffness in the motion telegraphing her continued worry and irritation.

“You can take the bed,” Natasha murmured when Melinda rose and started preparing for sleep.

“You’ll be joining me.”

Natasha smiled down at the folder in her lap.


	2. Chapter 2

_[[Day Three]]_

Natasha ran a hand down the garment bag holding her gown for the evening, the rough, waterproof material crinkling beneath her palm. Nothing had gone to hell yet, except for maybe Melinda’s impression of her as a field operative, but most of the room for the mission to fail was tonight.

Melinda had checked in through McLaughlin this morning with the assurance that she was booked as a server at the gala tonight and that she’d be there, watching Natasha’s back. Natasha had been in contact with McLaughlin twice more today, outside of regular check-ins, making sure that nothing had changed. Otherwise she’d been sitting on her hands, idle and with nothing to do but worry for nearly 24 hours since she’d parted with Melinda and checked into the hotel yesterday afternoon.

A pit of worry still sat in her stomach, growing and making her clench up as the hours progressed. No one had said anything yet about anything possibly going wrong. Nothing had come from HQ. And yet….

Well, at least she knew that Melinda felt just as insecure as she did about this whole job.

At 1700 reception rang up to her room, informing her that her driver waited at the door to bring her across town to the gala. Natasha fixed her lipstick, grabbed her purse, and looked longingly at the cupboard where the safe with her gun locked inside sat. There would be metal detectors across the premises. She couldn’t bring it in. She’d feel better with it, though.

Melinda would be armed tonight. Learning the premises and the best way to make sure she had a firearm on her was part of the reason they’d established two days before the event. She _trusted_ Melinda.

But if anything got between them, Natasha still wouldn’t have a weapon.

 

Natasha stepped from the car upon arrival at the banquet hall, glanced around and made her way quickly to the door while the reporters outside were busy photographing some young, up-and-coming actress who was also in attendance that night. Until she was inside she was just another nobody, but best to be on the safe side. She’d be in the background of photographs of another little, red haired woman—not the subject of them.

Inside she handed off her coat to the lady behind the check-in counter, plucked the name card of her cover from the table, and with a smooth, unhurried walk, entered into the hall proper. She scanned the room, making a great show of figuring out the numberings of the tables while she sought out both her target and Melinda.

No sign of her partner yet, but Kurt Meyer, the man she was meant to be observing and collecting information from, sat at the table in the right corner from the door, hand wrapped around a tumbler and his entire posture screaming anxiety from across the room. The job would’ve been easier on her end if S.H.I.E.L.D. had ensured she had a seat at the same table as the informant. Instead, her table was at the far end of the room from him. Regardless, with this setup she couldn’t understand why it wasn’t Melinda making the contact.

Add another bit of uncertainty to the pool.

Natasha reminded herself that McLaughlin hadn’t overseen a mission on his own before, and _that_ was why she and Melinda had been assigned to it together. If it wasn’t being managed the way she would do it, well, they could always change things on the fly.

The informant looked up at her as Natasha walked by, intentionally taking a circuit the long way around the room.

“ _Entschuldigung_ ,” she said, leaning over a chair across the table from the man. She painted a heavy English accent over the German word. Meyer downed the rest of his whiskey at the address, barely swallowing it and sputtering when he tried to answer her.

“Yes, Miss?” he asked, English far better than Natasha’s character’s German.

Natasha gave a relieved giggle at the English use. “What table number is this? My dad’s Brad Wolfley and he sent me to this thing, but I’ve never been to one of these crazy galas before, _and_ no one speaks English here. I’m looking for,” she peered at the card in her hand, “Table 21?”

Meyer’s eyes had widened through her chatter and name-dropping. His hand wavered, like he might go for his briefcase, for a moment before he pointed across the room. “This is 3,” he said. “Try somewhere over there.”

Natasha giggled again. “Thank you, _Herr_ ,” she said, a bit of a hitch on the end of the German title like she was trying not to laugh at having used it. Slip of paper in hand, she extended it to him across the table. “Naomi Wolfley,” she introduced.

“Kurt Meyer,” he said. He nearly dropped the paper onto the table when their hands parted, fumbling through the air for it in a way that Natasha hoped any onlookers would interpret as his just being nervous over having shaken hands with a woman more than half his age.

Natasha beamed at him. “It’s a pleasure meeting you,” she said, then looked across the room. “So, somewhere over there…” she said as she wandered off to find table 21.

Halfway across the room, Melinda intercepted her with a cocktail-laden tray. Her thumb tapped on the edge of the bar tray and Natasha picked up the glass nearest it—it would be alcohol-free, leaving her able to sip it and not suspiciously nursing the same drink all night.

“Thank you,” she said, and skirted around Melinda without another glance. Naomi had been a list of personality descriptor adjectives on a page, leaving Natasha to build her as they went through the night. New money never concerned itself with service workers. Which was a shame, because it would be nice to be able to pull Melinda aside at some point in the night and wish her a _Happy Anniversary_.

_“Keep an eye out,”_ McLaughlin said in her ear. _“We aren’t the only ones on the premises.”_

_Dammit_. Natasha made it to her table, placed her clutch purse on her chair and name card on her plate. She adopted a lost expression as she sipped her drink, listening to the chatter of German around her and seeking out anyone who looked out of place here.

She’d indicated Meyer should meet her for the drop in another hour and a half, after dinner had been served. Out of sight of the rest of the gala guests and past the point where most of them would be sober enough to register that anyone might be missing—friends of Meyer or not. If S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t the only agency on the ground though, and they had competitors for seizing this information, an hour and a half would be too late.

Approaching Meyer now, so soon, would be more conspicuous than not. 

_“Widow, we think it’s A.I.M. crashing the party. And I mean that literally.”_

Great information, were she in a position to do anything about it. Melinda had disappeared, tossing her cover in favour of providing support and trying to keep the A.I.M. agents out of the building. Natasha’s hand tightened around her cocktail glass. S.H.I.E.L.D. would supply backup. They’d be here soon, even if McLaughlin hadn’t bothered to tell her that reinforcements were arriving to deal with any interlopers. Her focus needed to be on Meyer and getting that damn file.

Dinner couldn’t end fast enough.

 

_“I’ve downed two, keeping sights out for anyone else,”_ Melinda said, halfway through the main course. The courses kept being interrupted by speeches. Long, dull talks in German that were punctuated by an interpreter repeating them in English, because half of the crowd here was American.

Natasha chased half a piece of broccoli around her plate, letting her gaze wander around the room. Naomi’s attention would wander, and though she was just polite enough not to disappear to the powder room in the middle of all of the speeches, she would never be able to recall anything said by the end of the night. 

Her attention froze when she reached table 3. In a dark corner and far from her, she’d not been able to make out Meyer well throughout the night because he’d sat with the centrepiece blocking him. Now, though, she could tell well enough that his bulk didn’t peak out from around the centrepiece at all.

Natasha glanced at the guests sitting around her table and, chewing on her bottom lip, leaned to the woman on the right. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked.

She gained a dark look from the woman, who shook her head in disapproval of either her use of English or her interruption of the speech, and pointed toward the entrance to the hall.

“ _Danke,_ ” Natasha said, slipping from her seat and keeping to the wall as she left the room.

“Meyer’s vanished,” she said as soon as she was alone. “I’ll check the third floor bar but I don’t expect to find him there.” She gathered the hem of her gown in her hand and pulled it up to her knees, doing a quick walk through the foyer, past the bathroom, and veering down a side corridor to the stairwell at the back.

_“How long has he been missing?”_ Melinda asked.

“Less than fifteen minutes.”

_“Long enough.”_

Natasha climbed the stairs faster, all three stories of them, heels in hand and nylons snagging and tearing on the roughness of the unfinished, concrete edges beneath her feet, and didn’t reply.

 

Natasha made a beeline for the lounge when she reached the third floor, conspicuous and drawing looks in her gown, regardless of the airs she put on as someone who belonged there.

“ _Entschuldigen Sie, bitte_ ,” she said, leaning over the bar and shedding Naomi Wolfley in favour of a character with pitch-perfect German. The bartender tilted his head at her. “I’m looking for my father: portly, a little on the short side, receding hairline? He was wearing a navy suit, with a black paisley tie. Has he been by here?”

The bartender shook his head and Natasha sighed, flipping one hand like she was exasperated. “He’s always wandering off. Thank you, anyway.”

She made two laps around the third floor, searching, coming to a stop in front of the lounge entrance again when Meyer was no where to be found. “Time check?” she murmured.

_“Half an hour to drop. Find him, Widow.”_

_“Heading for your position,”_ Melinda said a moment later.

“Stay on the ground, keep an eye out for him leaving the building,” Natasha said. “I’m fine here.”

_“You’re sure?”_

She still could use that gun.

“Positive. Going to circuit the building; will return here for the drop time in case he shows.” She didn’t expect him to, of course, but there was always the off chance.

_“Copy,”_ McLaughlin and Melinda said in unison.

If A.I.M. was anywhere in the building, especially if they were present at the gala she and Meyer had been attending, they would’ve already noticed her absence. She’d been gone too long to just be using the washroom, and to return now only to disappear again in half an hour to try and meet Meyer would attract more information than it would draw away.

Recalculating, Natasha headed for the elevator. The building had another floor and a half, not counting the basement storage. She’d work through the second floor, then the parts of the first unrelated to her gala, and _then_ she’d worry about getting into the basement. No evidence yet that Meyer had been in any trouble, unless….

The nerves he’d exhibited at the beginning of the night that she’d assumed were related to his never having made a drop before looked different with his having gone missing before the designated drop time. The sweaty palm, twitchy eye and alcohol gulping could’ve been symptomatic of A.I.M. having gotten to him before she’d ever arrived at the banquet hall. A trap?

There hadn’t been any suggestion in the packet that anyone knew S.H.I.E.L.D. would be at this event, collecting information. Then again, there had been so much missing from that packet, that this was exactly the event Natasha had been expecting, from the very beginning. They hadn’t known A.I.M. would be here, not even a whisper of it.

Natasha stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the basement level. The likelihood of Meyer appearing at the bar had dropped to about 5%, as far as she could figure. Searching the upper floors, whatever she’d told Melinda and McLaughlin, was a waste of time.


	3. Chapter 3

_[[Day Three – Twenty Minutes to Scheduled Drop]]_

The elevator doors parted to reveal a silent cave of storage, the concrete floor dusty beyond the main route the banquet hall workers used to cart tables and chairs back and forth between here and the upstairs floors. Natasha slid her shoes off again, holding them in one hand, conscious of the loud whispering of the hem of her gown dragging on the floor as she walked. This dress needed the three-inch pumps, but the clacking of heels on concrete wouldn’t do anything but inform the A.I.M. agents of her presence.

_“Status, Widow?”_

Natasha didn’t respond, _couldn’t_ at this juncture. She inspected the floor, looking for a trail in the dust to indicate there had been anyone down here other than employees in the last hour or so. So quiet down here, and without any noise carrying to suggest her destination, she had to systematically move up and down the heavy-traffic aisles, looking for any hints.

_“Black Widow, report.”_

_‘Shut up, McLaughlin,’_ she thought to herself, wishing she could snap it back at him. The earpiece synced into her vitals, read them out to him on his screen. He knew she was fine, if not able to respond this instant. 

Something shuffled behind the columns of chairs stacked to her right and Natasha froze and pressed herself up against them, trying to peer between two of the chairs. In the dimness, though, she couldn’t make anything out from this vantage point. Head low, she crept forward, step by slow painstaking step, shoe held at the ready, stiletto point out. 

A man’s whimper, and then “You have what you want. I gave it to you!” slurred together in a torrent of frightened German. Meyer.

Natasha waited at the end of the row, ears attuned to every tiny noise, waiting and trying to count how outnumbered she was. Melinda had taken down two of the A.I.M. agents, but without knowing how many of them there had been in the first place, that number only meant she’d get swarmed by a couple less.

“Tell us again what she looked like,” said a patient voice speaking English with a flat, North American accent. Us. More than one of them. 

“I said, pretty!” Meyer switched over to English. “Long red hair, dark blue dress.” He paused, and Natasha could tell by the speed of his breathing, loud and approaching hyperventilation, that he was trying to find something he hadn’t already told them. “Her name’s Naomi!”

“Last name?” barked the A.I.M. agent who had spoken before.

“I don’t—Wolfley!”

“Find her.” Footsteps pounded as a third person started running up the aisle toward where Natasha hid.

“She was at table 21!” Meyer shouted.

Natasha smiled to herself. Amazing, what people could remember under duress, and what they were willing to offer up to their captors.

The runner drew parallel to her and Natasha struck out with her pump, catching him in the midsection with the heel. He let out a cry and reached for her, hands grasping at the air when she sidestepped, grabbed him by the hair with her other hand and smashed his face into the column of legs formed by the stacked chairs next to her. Holding his face, the man fell.

Shots sounded. Natasha ducked back down behind the stack of chairs, out of the line of fire. She could hear Meyer sobbing, “ _Es tut mir leid_ ,” over and over again, like a prayer. She slammed her foot into the side of the man at her feet, rolling him over, and, judging the distance in an instant, dove for the gun strapped to his leg.

She rolled, coming away with the gun, veering out of the path of another bullet. Natasha got to her knees, gun raised and aimed beyond Meyer and at the A.I.M. agent, a blond man whose hair was a little too long and five o’clock shadow a little too defined for the tuxedo he was wearing.

_“Widow, get_ out _of there!”_ shouted McLaughlin in her ear, sounding like he’d never heard gunfire before. She was starting to think that maybe he hadn’t, at least outside of a controlled environment.

“You’ve got the files? Let him go,” she said, lifting her chin to gesture at Meyer.

The man smiled. “Thinking about it,” he said. “What’ll you give me?”

Natasha mimicked the smile, watching his slip away as she let the Black Widow mask rise into her eyes. “I’m not a hostage negotiator. That’s your hint.”

_“Widow!”_ prompted McLaughlin in her ear. His voice was urgent, distracting, and she should’ve taken the earpiece out when she’d had the chance.

The man lifted his shoulders, still holding his gun trained on her. “Good thing I’m not keeping a hostage then,” he said, and his thumb moved, pressing something she hadn’t noticed him holding against the butt of the gun.

Natasha tensed, and for a long moment nothing happened, but Meyer had drawn in on himself more. And then she could smell it, and practically dropped the gun in her haste to pull the body of her skirt up over her nose and mouth. Gas, or something like it, pouring into the aisle from small canisters shoved into the gaps between the seats of the stacked chairs. 

She coughed, backing away from the scene, her eyes watering with the burning contact of the stuff filling the air. Her vision blurred at the edges. A.I.M. had produced a mask with filters from his pocket and strapped it to his face. Meyer and the A.I.M. agent she’d downed were already unconscious.

“Airborne toxin,” she said into her skirt, gripping onto a sideways table she’d backed into to keep her feet under her. She hoped the microphone on her earpiece was good enough to pick up her words. She coughed again, two loud, dry hacks that tore at her throat. “Evacuate the premises.”

_“Stay with us,”_ Melinda said, voice calm and collected in her ear.

The A.I.M. agent took a step or two closer to her, head tilted a bit to one side, watching and waiting for her to pass out. Dropping to the floor, eyes watering and running so much she was blind, Natasha felt around until she had gun in hand again. She dropped the skirt from her mouth, raised the gun and fired, not aware enough to figure out how accurate the bullet had flown.

Alarms screamed through the building, drawing her attention up a moment before something dark obscured her vision, there was a pain in her teeth, and the darkness bled into nothing.

 

_[[Day Three – Scheduled Drop Time]]_

Melinda checked the magazine on her sidearm for the sixth time, frustrated and fidgety. She’d be pacing if she didn’t think it would make those evacuating around her more edgy and nervous. She tapped her foot on the ground instead, waiting for the all clear from McLaughlin to rush back into the building and figure out where the hell Natasha had gone.

_“Last known location was probably the basement. That’s where we lost the signal,”_ he said finally.

“And her vitals?” Melinda asked, slipping through a door propped a tiny bit ajar by a concrete block.

_“They were weak but steady when we lost the signal.”_

Whoever was running this circus had found the earpiece and smashed it, leaving Natasha alone and presumably unconscious, and Melinda to scour the building looking for her. She’d found a mask on one of the A.I.M. goons she’d downed and strapped it to her face, in case any of the toxins lingered in the air. There, so far, hadn’t been any evidence suggesting there had been enough volume of gas to spread through the building, but if all of the attackers had been carrying masks, it was a good bet they’d stored more gas canisters somewhere.

“Checking the basement now,” Melinda said, stepping out of the stairwell. She shone a penlight down the aisles, adding light to the dimness provided by the emergency lights. “I’ve got yellow gas sitting up near the ceiling.”

_“Keep talking to me. What else is there?”_ said a new, familiar voice.

“Coulson,” Melinda greeted, unsurprised they’d called in a more experienced handler to deal with the chaos this mission had become. Protocol dictated that losing contact with an agent, even if she’d been cagey about following orders up to the loss of contact, ceded a mission to the nearest higher ranking, available agent. “Bit late to the party.”

_“Find Romanoff. Chat later.”_

She wouldn’t say it, but she was glad the job had been passed over to Coulson. At this juncture, his status as a handler was negligible. His status as a colleague she trusted, and almost as a friend, would be what kept her calm.

She found two dead men, a gun and a pair of navy blue pumps underneath the smoggy yellow cloud. Checking the vitals on each of them, Melinda frowned at the blue, swollen lips they both sported, and the bugged out eyeballs.

“The gas is lethal,” she said. “Kurt Meyer and one of the A.I.M. agents are here, dead. Romanoff is missing. I’m going to circle, make sure she didn’t start leaving and collapse nearby.”

_“You need a minute?”_ Coulson asked, like he’d read her clinical tone and knew what hid behind it. Hell, he did.

“No.” Everything she could read from the way the clean patches smeared through the dust suggested there had been a struggle, and Natasha had been moved. No point to relocating the corpse of an enemy agent, and with Natasha’s enhanced physiology, she could be recovering at this moment, safely clear of the toxin.

As long as she was clear of it. Even Natasha had her limits.

_“Good,”_ Coulson said. _“Find her. I have a lecture about protocol in the works.”_

“Might want to rehearse it on someone else if you want it to make an impact,” Melinda said. Hating taking the time to do it, she bent down and combed through Meyer’s pockets, not expecting to find the flash drive they needed to recover, but required to look anyway. With the same fastidious attention she searched through the pocket of the fallen A.I.M. agent, not finding the flash drive but coming away with an ID card that she pocketed.

“A.I.M. goon’s name is Brandon Teller.”

_“Running it now.”_

One last pocket got her Teller’s mask and she pocketed that, too. “Send two stretchers down for these guys when the building’s clear.”

_“I’ve got it covered. The team will be on the ground in an hour.”_

Melinda started spiralling out from the scene, walking up and down the aisles formed by stacked tables and chairs, checking in small nooks and crannies that Natasha might’ve tried to cram herself into. She shone the penlight into every corner, under every chair, coming up with nothing half an hour later when her search was complete, back at the same central spot where she’d started.

“I’ve got her earpiece,” she said, bending down and picking up the pieces of it. She hadn’t noticed it before. “Broken.” She pocketed it, well aware of the damage the DNA link could cause if it fell into the wrong hands, glad that A.I.M. hadn’t been aware of who Natasha was working for to know to keep the piece.

_“I’ve got an address for you,”_ Coulson said. _“Get back to the safe house and we’ll regroup.”_

“I need to check the rest of the building.”

_“We checked the cameras. Found footage of a stocky man carrying her out into the parking lot. Lost them once they were out of range.”_

Melinda broke into a jog, taking the stairs two at a time; the elevator was still shut down for the evacuation. She shed her mask as she exited the building, barely flashing her badge at the _Berliner Polizei_ that came to try and intercept her. S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t officially here, so she couldn’t let him see it in any detail, but the motion was enough to make him back off. (It shouldn’t have been, especially not if they were going to classify this a terrorist attack, but he was a uniformed officer, not a detective.)

“Which direction?” she asked, looking around at the parking lots. They lay all around the building, never mind the underground car park.

_“Safe house first. There are more directions.”_

“Send them to my phone, Coulson!” she demanded, heading for her car and knowing she needed to go back to the safe house all the same. There was a secure connection there that didn’t exist here, and if HQ needed to send anything classified over to her, she wasn’t going to win this argument.

_“Going?”_ he asked after a long pause.

“I’m going,” she growled. “You keep that footage to yourself.” She didn’t need to see Natasha limp, thrown over some goon’s shoulder.

_Happy fucking Anniversary to me._


	4. Chapter 4

_[[Day Three: 2300 – One hour after scheduled drop time]]_

Melinda shattered speed limits and ran at least two red lights on the drive back to the safe house, rendering the half hour drive into one that took less than fifteen minutes.

“Where am I going?” she snapped the minute the apartment door closed behind her.

_“Transferring the files to you now,”_ Coulson said. She opened the laptop, accepted the files for download and moved around the apartment while the little bar on the screen filled. She’d changed into her field suit and was in the midst of counting rounds when the computer pinged completion. Shoving her gun into its holster, Melinda pulled up the map Coulson had sent.

“Anything other than an address?” she asked.

_“Nothing,”_ Coulson said. _“We haven’t received any contact from A.I.M.”_

Melinda nodded. Of course they hadn’t. All of the information A.I.M. had on Natasha would be what Kurt Meyer had given them before they killed him. They’d be likely to think she was C.I.A., or F.B.I. They’d never suspect S.H.I.E.L.D, and if their intent was to use her as leverage against the United States, well, they’d sure as hell be contacting the wrong organization to do it. 

“Forward me any feeds you get from the location.”

_“I’ll make sure you know what you need to know, May.”_

She memorized the directions on the screen and the floor plan image that had come up with them, trying to work out the most likely part of the building for Natasha to have been taken to. From what little she could tell without proper satellite imaging, the building was a strip mall. Possibly abandoned, since there didn’t seem to be any businesses working out of it. One storey.

“What do you have on our goons?” she asked, shutting the laptop lid with a snap. She forced herself into a sedate pace back to the car, taking the elevator even though she wished she could run down the stairs, conscious of Coulson’s access to her vitals readout.

No one at S.H.I.E.L.D. formally acknowledged that she and Natasha were involved on any level other than colleagues and maybe friends. Coulson’s asking her if she needed a minute, earlier, was the closest anyone had ever come. But there was more than one reason she and Natasha were never selected to work jobs together.

Someone should’ve overruled McLaughlin’s team choice on this one.

_“Not much. We’re working through A.I.M.’s servers now, trying to figure out what they wanted with Meyer and those files.”_

The elevator beeped at the ground floor. Melinda massaged the tense muscles at the back of her neck with one hand as she crossed the foyer. “What was in those files?”

Coulson kept silent, not even granting her the courtesy of telling her it was above her clearance level, and Melinda scowled, the expression ugly on the ghost of her reflection in the glass door in front of her. Right. 

“That flash drive more or less important than recovering Romanoff?”

_“You don’t want the answer to that.”_

That was answer in itself, even if Coulson didn’t want to give the order. Melinda bit down on her lip, tires squealing as she pulled out of the parking lot, car tilting to one side with the force of taking the corner so fast.

 

The clock on the dash rolled over to midnight as she pulled over and dumped the car a block away from the strip mall, tempted to leave it running but taking the keys with her. Not a good idea to risk losing the vehicle. Probably an even worse idea to park this far away, but a car pulling up to the front of the building would lose her any advantage stealth might give her.

Melinda strapped the mask she’d stolen at the banquet hall back over her face as a precaution, and double-checked the pocket she’d stored the extra one in. She didn’t think they’d gas out their own hideout, but she’d already seen the evidence that they weren’t above killing their own people, so best not to take the chance.

“At the location.”

_“Radio silence from here on out, unless you need us.”_

“I won’t.”

Gun drawn and held low, Melinda crept along the back of the building, testing each door. The third attempt gave her one that sat unlocked. She turned the knob slowly, pushing it inch by inch, but there was no hiding the creaky noise the hinges made as the door started to swing open. Melinda gave it a push with the palm of her hand and drew back, flat against the exterior wall. The door crashed against the wall behind it and bounced back, the noise covering any immediate reactions from those within.

She peered around the corner and, seeing no one, rounded it, back flat to the doorframe and then interior wall, gun up and at the ready. This room was nothing more than storage, boxes along the walls, most of them stacked in crooked towers. A shelving unit sat behind her, clogged with dusty jars and smaller boxes filled with wires that spewed out the top. No evidence that anyone had been here in a while, beyond the unlocked door.

A hissing noise started above her and Melinda looked up, finding a canister like those that had been in the banquet hall basement spewing out the same yellow tinged smoke. Making sure the seal on her mask was tight, she made her way deeper into the building

Someone was here, at least, and she knew she was in the right place.

The closed door across the room from her was also locked. One step back, a bit of a run to build momentum, and Melinda kicked it open, the noise of the old, weak locking mechanism loud when it ripped from the door.

The room beyond was a disused kitchen, pots in the sink full of stagnant, growing water suggesting the restaurant had simply gone bankrupt and locked up one day, never to return. The large, walk-in refrigerator and freezer were directly across from her, a bank of preparation counters and cooking appliances to her left. There was no one here, either, but she could make out words coming through the two-way swinging door to her right.

Knowing the very last thing she had was the advantage of surprise, Melinda cut across the kitchen almost at a run, grabbed an old dish cart, and threw it through the swinging door before ducking low and out of the way.

Two sharp pops and bullets flew through the door, one travelling straight through the gap when the door swung out of its path, the other curving when it travelled through the solid mass of the door itself and the arc sent it on a different path. 

She’d caught sight of one in view of the door, the shooter, no doubt, and Melinda fired up through the window in the door, aiming at a ceiling light she could just make out beyond. A flash of light as the bulb exploded, and the glass tinkled when it shattered and fell, providing her cover to slip from the kitchen. She shot another light out as she went, the next nearest to her target.

Standing bent a little at the waist and with his arms thrown up over his head to protect his face from the rain of shards was a blonde man in a tuxedo. That was as much as Melinda registered before she shot him in the stomach.

He screamed, fell to his knees and dropped the gun. Was still scrambling for it when Melinda crossed the room and kicked it away. His screams got louder when she stepped on his fingers, twisting her ankle to grind her heel into the knuckles. Melinda did a quick study of the dining room, but they were alone—whoever he’d been talking to had either been on his cell phone, or on the computer that sat, screen blinking, on the nearest table.

“Stop, _stop!_ ”

She did. “Two things,” she said, aware of how much time she had before he bled out from the hole in his stomach. Even more aware that her partner might have even less time than him.

“Whatever you want,” he sobbed, the words breaking off into a moan. He curled in tighter on himself, free hand pressed to the bullet wound, the other one still under her foot.

“The flash drive?”

He nodded, a bit of a flailing motion, in the vague direction of the computer. Melinda pressed harder on his fingers, bringing a cry from his throat.

“T-there! It’s up there!”

Letting up on his hand again, she made a show of glancing back over at the computer. The flash drive stuck out of a port on the side, a light flashing frantically in the top of it. Worry about it later. He wouldn’t lie about whether or not that was the right item at this juncture, and besides that, it looked like he’d already sent the files to his superiors.

“And the woman?”

“What— _augh!_ ” he shouted, when she focused her force on his little finger. She felt something give under her heel, and heard it snap.

“The woman?” she repeated, gritting her teeth.

“The fridge!” he wailed.

Melinda tossed a look over her shoulder, almost turning for the kitchen before she’d fully caught up with the instinct to make sure Natasha was okay over everything else. She bent and picked up the second gun and tucked it into her pants, closed the computer and yanked the flash drive from its port.

“Coulson, I need an ambulance for the goon.”

_“Copy. Romanoff?”_

“Medical chopper, at least,” she said, looking down and securing the flash drive in a pocket as she crossed the dining room.

“At least,” a soft voice rasped in front of her.

Melinda let out a hard burst of air, gaze jumping from the stained, dark blue gown hem to Natasha’s pale face, her updo lopsided and tendrils of hair fallen out in a frizzy halo around her head. She leaned heavily on the doorframe with the kitchen door behind her looking like it might knock her down if it closed fully.

“That door was locked from the outside,” Melinda murmured, crossing to Natasha and cupping her cheeks in her hands. Her thumbs touched the dried specks of blood on Natasha’s nose and chin, flaking a couple of them off.

“Was it?” Natasha asked, and Melinda could lecture her later for being intentionally obtuse. For now she touched her forehead to her partner’s briefly, before pulling Natasha’s arm over her shoulders and pulling her so her weight was on Melinda instead of her own feet. One arm firm around Natasha’s waist, she led her back out of the kitchen.

_“Evac is in the field three blocks north of where you parked,”_ Coulson said.

“Copy,” Melinda said. Natasha coughed, clinging to her shoulder and shaking with the heaving of her lungs. “Alright?” she asked, and damn if there wasn’t a soft tone to her voice that Coulson and whoever else privy to this conversation would have to be deaf not to pick up on.

“I’m fine,” Natasha said. The roughness of the voice, though, told Melinda louder than words that the coughing had been going on for a while. “Fresh air,” she added.

They walked in silence back to the car. Melinda didn’t ask if the refrigerator had been turned into a gas chamber and Natasha didn’t offer up the information, but every breath she took once they were free of the building was deep and long, and every other breath punctuated with a coughing fit.

She didn’t ask about the mangled state of the refrigerator door when they passed it, either.


	5. Epilogue

_[[Three days later]]_

Natasha spent a little shy of two days under observation in S.H.I.E.L.D. medical when they returned to New York, the first 24 hours with an oxygen tank by her bed and mask over her nose and mouth. Melinda spent most of those two days in debrief meetings or writing reports, wanting to be by Natasha’s side but finding she grew angry every time she spent more than a couple of minutes there.

Victim blaming, and a bad case of it, for her to think that Natasha could have done much to avoid the situation she’d gotten into, but if she’d been a little less cocksure, a little more cautious, and if she’d accepted Melinda’s help when she’d offered it, maybe none of it would’ve happened.

Stupid. Of course it would’ve happened just the same, and Melinda would probably be dead now, lacking Natasha’s enhancements to fight the toxins and keep her alive.

“Hey.”

Melinda looked up, found Clint Barton standing by her desk. She greeted him with a nod before turning back to her paperwork. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him move into the cubicle. He bent down to look up at her from below and beside. It was unnerving, and she knew he could hold that crouched posture for longer than she wanted him lingering by her desk.

“Yes, Barton?”

“’Tash thinks you’re mad at her,” he said.

She glared at him, lips pressed together, and glanced around. He hadn’t spoken loud enough for his voice to carry, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t walk by, and it sure as hell didn’t grant him permission to talk about this here. 

“She said that to you?” she asked when he didn’t look repentant.

“’Course not. She’s just easy to read.”

Melinda snorted at that, flourishing a signature along the bottom of the page she was filling out, and returning to the top of it to read it over.

“She ain’t gonna come to you, May,” he said. She met his eyes at the serious tone of his voice and raised an eyebrow because there had been a lot of malice in that tone, and while Barton would probably never outright threaten her, he’d just come awfully close.

Melinda pushed her chair out. She collected all of the papers on her desktop into a folder and tucked the chair back in. Beside her, Barton straightened.

“I was going to take her out for Thai,” he said. “You should do it instead.”

She waited until he’d reached the hallway—she had to deliver a report, he seemed set on following her all the way there—before turning to him. “When’s the last time you had a date, Barton?” she snapped.

“Oh this is not about me,” he said, throwing his hands up. “But last night, since you asked. You know Agent 19?” He shut up and shrugged at her expression. “You asked,” he repeated.

“Take her out,” he said again. “She misses you.”

Melinda waved him off.

 

Natasha’s fingers flew across the keyboard, her attention locked on the screen in front of her despite it being nearly seven pm. Melinda knocked a knuckle against the plastic top edge of her cubicle wall, and her breath caught at the smile Natasha gave her when she turned and saw who’d interrupted her.

“Almost done?” Melinda asked.

Natasha hesitated, making a bit of a noise in her throat and turning back to the computer screen for a moment. She had her hair pulled back in a French braid along her scalp and away from her face, and from this angle the healing, yellowy bruise along her jaw line from where she’d been stomped on should’ve been obvious, but was barely a shadow under her makeup.

“I’ve had a day’s leeway on this already,” she said. “Another ten minutes and I’ll be done.”

Melinda nodded, grabbing a chair from a neighbouring desk and pulling it over to sit beside Natasha. She pulled a book from the nearest shelf and flipped it open to Natasha’s bookmark, catching the woman in question looking at her from the corner of her eye when she went to turn the page.

“What?” she asked.

Natasha shook her head. “Practicing your Russian?” she asked, turning back to her report. Melinda noted that her typing speed had increased. 

“Never know when I’ll need it,” Melinda replied, and turned back to the book. Her Russian reading level probably wasn’t as high as it should’ve been for the nuances of any book Natasha ruled suitable for her shelf, but she got the gist of it.

Ten minutes later, Natasha closed the windows on the computer and set it to hibernate. Melinda slid the book back onto the shelf and they stood at the same time.

“What’s this about?” Natasha asked, a bit of a quirk to her mouth but a wary look in the depth of her eyes that that smile tried to hide. Melinda hadn’t questioned Barton’s judgement, not really, but her heart clenched a little seeing the proof of Natasha’s worry about where they stood.

The floor had been empty enough when she came in, and Melinda slid her hand under Natasha’s elbow, cupped it and guided her from the cubicle. “I’ve got a surprise.”

Natasha’s slow motions weren’t exactly resistance, because if she wanted to resist, she wouldn’t be moving, but neither were they eager to find out what Melinda had in mind. She slipped away from the contact when they reached the end of the cubicle row, and made a great production of getting her coat from the closet that stood there, and a greater one of putting it on.

“Hey,” Melinda prompted with a smile. 

Natasha flipped the tail of her braid out from the collar of the coat to form a scarlet snake that curled under the lapel. She gave Melinda a questioning look, features schooled to painful indifference. 

“We missed Friday.” Natasha’s eyelids moved a fraction and Melinda took that as encouragement to continue. “So I planned something to make up for it.” And, fuck Barton, she’d planned it before he’d ambushed her.

Natasha smiled a tiny little smile. “Am I dressed for this?” she asked.

“You’re fine,” Melinda said, doing her the favour of a once over. “Shall we?”

“Melinda,” Natasha said, and Melinda had to turn back because Natasha hadn’t started walking with her. “Thank you for coming for me.”

“Always,” Melinda said, letting the word hang in the air and make a liar of her, because they both knew that circumstances and orders ruled stronger than intent. She stepped back to where Natasha still stood and, careless of who might be looking and the cameras observing every moment, leaned in close.

“Always,” she repeated, a breath against Natasha’s lips. Natasha closed the distance and made their touching lips the seal to keep the lie between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://shieldivarius.tumblr.com


End file.
